DARPA’s factory of the future looks like open source development

DARPA's Adaptive Vehicle Make project aims to reinvent manufacturing by making …

DARPA is looking to solve the problem of runaway defense systems projects by reinventing how complex systems are developed and manufactured. They aim to do this by borrowing from the playbooks of integrated circuit developers and open-source software projects. And in the process, the agency's Adaptive Vehicle Make project may reinvent manufacturing itself, and seed the workforce with a new generation of engineers who can "compile" innovations into new inventions without having to be tied to a manufacturing plant.

"The direction we've been going in defense acquisition can't last," DARPA AVM deputy program manager and Army Lt. Col. Nathan Wiedenman said in a press briefing attended by Ars Technica. "The systems we build are more complex, but the way we do it hasn't changed much in 50 years." He pointed out that the Army alone had spent $22 billion over the last 10 years on programs that got cancelled. He said that DOD wasn't far off from a tongue-in-cheek statement made by former Lockheed Martin president Norman Augustine—one of "Augustine's Laws"—that by 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase one aircraft.

Factory of the future

The AVM project aims to change that by reducing the "product cycle" of defense systems from an average of almost 10 years down to two years—similar to the design cycle for new integrated circuits. To do that, DARPA is funding the development of software tools, called META, that will allow engineers to design, prototype and test systems collaboratively before they are ever built.

And today, DARPA released the final solicitation for IFAB (Instant Foundry Adaptive through Bits), a computer-driven flexible manufacturing capability that will allow for distributed, software-driven manufacturing of systems in "foundries" that can be quickly reconfigured to new tasks, using technologies like computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) machine tools and "additive manufacturing" (otherwise known as 3D printing) to scale up rapidly from prototype to full production runs. The goal of the IFAB program, Wiedenman said, is "to build the factory of the future, using software that can rapidly reconfigure a factory for new products with no need to retool to build something new."

The auto industry has been pushing forward the idea of digital design and prototyping for over a decade, linking in suppliers with master computer-aided design files and doing supercomputer-powered crash tests. But that has all been within the confines of closed product lifecycle management systems. DARPA's AVM projects seek to create a model-based design approach that would allow engineers to collaborate on designs of new vehicles like developers working on a software project, using a set of tools that allow them to do "correct by construction design," Wiedenman said.

Correct by construction is an engineering approach used in software engineering and integrated circuit design that uses mathematical models to check the impact each component of a system has on the whole, ensuring that the design falls within certain constraints. DARPA is funding the development of engineering "meta-tools" that would allow engineers to contribute components to a design that would be checked against a set of models, checking for potential unintended integration issues.

The designs coming out of the META tools will then get transmitted to IFAB foundries, where software will generate processes for machines and human workers to follow. The IFAB can communicate back suggested changes to the designers providing information about manufacturing limitations and ways to modify the design to reduce cost. Because the process can be decoupled from any one manufacturing plant, Wiedenman said, the IFAB "doesn't have to exist under one roof"—it can be an "amalgamation of capabilities, connected by software."

The first test of IFAB will be to produce a prototype for the Marine Corps' Amphibious Combat Vehicle, a reboot of the Corps' failed Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program. DARPA chose the ACV program because "It was important for us to do a real product," Wiedenman explained, "and show we could build a system of appropriate complexity—not a toaster." DARPA Tactical Technology Office program manager Paul Eremenko added that since the IFAB effort will compete against conventionally-designed prototypes vying for the contract, it provides a real world problem to solve"control case" to measure results against.

Community-source vehicles

In parallel with the ACV effort Eremenko said DARPA is also launching an "open-source" vehicle program called VehicleForge.mil, which will test what he called a "democratization of the innovation process " made possible by the META tools. "The goal is to democratize innovation by several orders of magnitude beyond what we're doing with the ACV," Eremenko said, in a similar way to how open source has driven innovation in software.

"In the open source software world, anybody can go in and modify the design, and check it in, and the community can recompile it and see what the impact is," Eremenko explained. "That process has proven itself and has yielded very high quality software." The barrier to doing open source with physical complex systems, he said, is that while it's easy enough to set up a shared "drawing tree," there's been no way to get an understanding of the impact of design changes as there is when software gets compiled. "Our META tools function as a compiler," he said—providing a way to assess those changes as they are checked in against models.

The META tools are still in development, so it may be a year or so before VehicleForge.mil gets off the ground. But when it does, DARPA plans to launch a series of design challenges to use the open-source approach to design the Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle (FANG). Universities and other challenge participants will be able to collaborate using the META tools and the Vehicleforge.mil community.

DARPA also plans to include high schools in less complex challenges. Through AVM's Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) program, "we're focused on how to get the right level of tools out to the high school level" trying to kickstart interest in the technology, Eremenko said. The agency will deploy as many as a thousand 3D printers to high schools, and allow students from different schools to collaborate using social networking tools to build robots, go-carts, and other projects to compete in prize challenges.

65 Reader Comments

While conspiracy theorists have been haarping on DARPA for years as a secret government agency up to no good, they really have been forward thinking over the last number of years. That seems counter intuitive for a government agency but they have been really opened up some good projects to the public.

With today's technically inclined population (well, more so than 50 years ago) crowd sourceing all this talent, with incentives of course, seems like a great idea. I look forward to seeing where this all goes over the years.

Are we going to be able to crowd-source the horrendous acronym approval process? Some of the above are ok (ACV, FANG), but most of them are tenuously derived (MENTOR: not really an acronym, but at least it describes the situation) or wholly nonsensical shoe-horning of words to force a new one (iFAB? Really? Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave). Remember: L.A.M.E.LameAcronymsMurderEfficiency

While conspiracy theorists have been haarping on DARPA for years as a secret government agency up to no good, they really have been forward thinking over the last number of years. That seems counter intuitive for a government agency but they have been really opened up some good projects to the public.

With today's technically inclined population (well, more so than 50 years ago) crowd sourceing all this talent, with incentives of course, seems like a great idea. I look forward to seeing where this all goes over the years.

I am surprised. From a strategic standpoint, this sounds like handing-out the innovative tools to any country. Wouldn't DoD see this as a blunting of the US Military's technological advantage over other countries? Or perhaps this is a bid to decrease the power that some defense contractors hold, such as Lockheed-Martin.

Either way, this is definitely riding the current additive manufacturing wave. It sounds exciting.

IMO, one key feature that keeps open source going is that people make tools that they need. Use an existing tool and if it doesn't quite do what you want, you try to change it to do what you want.

Not many actually "need" to use military hardware (those who need it might not be smart enough to design it ) That is why I don't see as big effect on projects such as opencompute project.

Also, these are very complex systems. To be good at it, you need to spend an enormous amount of time. Unless you are independently wealthy or have some benefactor, that would be a tough call for most smart people who have to spend most of their time earning a living.

IMO, one key feature that keeps open source going is that people make tools that they need. Use an existing tool and if it doesn't quite do what you want, you try to change it to do what you want.

Not many actually "need" to use military hardware (those who need it might not be smart enough to design it ;) ) That is why I don't see as big effect on projects such as opencompute project.

Also, these are very complex systems. To be good at it, you need to spend an enormous amount of time. Unless you are independently wealthy or have some benefactor, that would be a tough call for most smart people who have to spend most of their time earning a living.

People always surprise you with what they come up with. I wouldn't be surprised if this goes somewhere nobody expected.

IMO, one key feature that keeps open source going is that people make tools that they need. Use an existing tool and if it doesn't quite do what you want, you try to change it to do what you want.

Not many actually "need" to use military hardware (those who need it might not be smart enough to design it ) That is why I don't see as big effect on projects such as opencompute project.

Also, these are very complex systems. To be good at it, you need to spend an enormous amount of time. Unless you are independently wealthy or have some benefactor, that would be a tough call for most smart people who have to spend most of their time earning a living.

The same could be said about software and somehow Open Source has made it.

"The designs coming out of the META tools will then get transmitted to IFAB foundries, where software will generate processes for machines and human workers to follow. ... Because the process can be decoupled from any one manufacturing plant,.."

visions of The Matrix..

is this another step into a future where wars can be conducted with a minimum number of personnel?

an automated pipeline of manufacturing capability, from design to production with virtually no human labour required, will allow nation states possessing these technologies to initiate and escalate hostilities -- all fully automated, while those who pressed the button (one button might be enough) sit back in their cozy bunkers.

personally, I'd prefer DARPA and their likes to put their ingenuity towards improving the human condition, not worsening it by making fighting war easier and more 'efficient'.

This sounds neat and all, but I really doubt the military is going to realize any cost savings with this. The BIG expense is not in the design/construction of the vehicles, it's the design/construction/maintenance of the vehicles weapon systems. Those things are classified and can't be crowd sourced.

[...] personally, I'd prefer DARPA and their likes to put their ingenuity towards improving the human condition, not worsening it by making fighting war easier and more 'efficient'.

Personally, I'd prefer to be an immortal billionaire, too, but fantasies are another thing altogether. War and improving the human condition are not "either or" choices, just like building roads or building houses aren't either or. You have to be able to do both.

While conspiracy theorists have been haarping on DARPA for years as a secret government agency up to no good, they really have been forward thinking over the last number of years. That seems counter intuitive for a government agency but they have been really opened up some good projects to the public.

With today's technically inclined population (well, more so than 50 years ago) crowd sourceing all this talent, with incentives of course, seems like a great idea. I look forward to seeing where this all goes over the years.

To be fair, DARPA did used to put details on half the projects they worked on on their website. Reading about their ideas to be able to monitor and treat soldiers on the battlefield while also removing the need to sleep for several days did seem a little creepy. But forward thinking is definitely not a bad thing and that's all they were doing. Basically what they were talking about would keep more soldiers alive and help those that are injured, things most people wouldn't argue with. The creepy robotics aside.

There are some amazing projects from DARPA though, it's basically pushing forward the idea that military innovation drives civilian innovation without the need for specific wars to drive it.

There are some amazing projects from DARPA though, it's basically pushing forward the idea that military innovation drives civilian innovation without the need for specific wars to drive it.

Yep, much of the life improving discoveries have come during wartime or out of military related R&D. Hell, the basis for what we are currently using was military. Or for that matter, i think modern surgical hygiene is in part based on experience collected during the American civil war.

Anything that results from war, can be accomplished through non-destructive means. Unfortunately we as a species are not capable of suppressing our inclination towards violence and an Us vs. Them worldview, and indeed actively cultivate them at the institutional level from a young age. We are mere brutes who happen to possess opposable thumbs and rudimentary self-awareness.

IMO, the approach discussed in the article will only help mitigate some of the cost of DoD programs. Until programs are defined upfront with a solid set of requirements and scope changes are minimized - cost overruns are going to occur frequently.

Forty years ago the top dogs in DARPA thought they could win the Vietnam war by using computers to model societies. This effort may be more rational. But, it is hard to separate the real logic from the ideological wrapping that is being used to market it. Software developers are not generally very good about doing designs. Usually open source efforts are worse than average at the run and gun approach to software development. Nor is democracy a very good approach to promote change. But then DARPA has never been about democracy and the requirements of national defense have been a big factor in promoting technological change. Even so, the successes have come along with a larger number of failures.

Anything that results from war, can be accomplished through non-destructive means. Unfortunately we as a species are not capable of suppressing our inclination towards violence and an Us vs. Them worldview, and indeed actively cultivate them at the institutional level from a young age. We are mere brutes who happen to possess opposable thumbs and rudimentary self-awareness.

History has numerous examples of trying to appease through peaceful means that has resulted in disaster.

One only has to look at the last two World Wars and the backstory on how they began to see this.

Hell the US as a country wouldn't even exist if we continued with non-destructive methods.

I'm not saying that war is needed for everything but to say anything can be achieved through non-destructive means is patently false and has been proven so throughout history for hundreds of years.

So, things like the Dakar Rally, which used to darwinistically winnow out the useful from the useless will get replaced by people prototyping things in computer-modelled environments, then companies picking up the prototypes that seem viable and rolling with them? Seems like there still needs to be a vetting process for what rolls out of the assembly line.

History has numerous examples of trying to appease through peaceful means that has resulted in disaster.

No dispute there. But what caused the conflict in the first place?

Quote:

I'm not saying that war is needed for everything but to say anything can be achieved through non-destructive means is patently false and has been proven so throughout history for hundreds of years.

The problem is that warfare and aggression are ingrained in us as a species. We simply cannot imagine a world without war, and thus frame everything with war as part of the equation.

What are we being attacked by? Other species? Aliens? God himself?

No, we are fighting other humans, because we simply cannot share our resources responsibly, nor eliminate the fundamental worldview that someone else out there is the enemy. We perpetuate our artificial differences generation after generation after generation. And thus history will indeed demonstrate that much 'progress' has happened during times of war. It has to, because we are always at war.

History has numerous examples of trying to appease through peaceful means that has resulted in disaster.

No dispute there. But what caused the conflict in the first place?

Quote:

I'm not saying that war is needed for everything but to say anything can be achieved through non-destructive means is patently false and has been proven so throughout history for hundreds of years.

The problem is that warfare and aggression are ingrained in us as a species. We simply cannot imagine a world without war, and thus frame everything with war as part of the equation.

What are we being attacked by? Other species? Aliens? God himself?

No, we are fighting other humans, because we simply cannot share our resources responsibly, nor eliminate the fundamental worldview that someone else out there is the enemy. We perpetuate our artificial differences generation after generation after generation. And thus history will indeed demonstrate that much 'progress' has happened during times of war. It has to, because we are always at war.

So, things like the Dakar Rally, which used to darwinistically winnow out the useful from the useless will get replaced by people prototyping things in computer-modelled environments, then companies picking up the prototypes that seem viable and rolling with them? Seems like there still needs to be a vetting process for what rolls out of the assembly line.

The project will eventually pit the outcome of these tool-aided designs against conventional vehicles for a military contract, so in the end there's still going to be direct competition. The idea behind this project is to make a standard set of tools with which most anybody can test their designs and see what works, so it's not removing the trial-and-error aspect so much as speeding up the process from concept to execution with a lot of bad ideas being left behind at an earlier, quicker-to-leave stage.

Just so I don't come across as a tree-hugging idealist, I grew up idolizing military equipment and playing with fake guns. (I mostly played with toy cars and models, but I won't claim that I never pointed a plastic gun at a target.) I watched war movies and rooted for 'our team' (in this case the US, but it applies the same around the world to the country/tribe/ideology that one is indoctrinated into). To this day I would love to own an M-35 Deuce-and-a-half as an offroad vehicle, but that's just a lingering, impractical fantasy. And I never felt any sort of kinship with hippies or peace rallies.

But over the years I've gained perspective, and realize that militarism and aggression are completely fabricated and unnecessary. Such sentiments may appease our inner beast, but they are not in anyway necessary towards the survival of our species, and indeed hinder true progress. Warfare may serve as a motivator for invention, but that's simply because we have allowed it to displace most others.

you can't ignore the historical evidence that shows a lot of progress happens in wartime.

Nor did I. addressed that in a reply to AdamM.

(And also, what is the cost of that progress? Are a few inventions worth the terrible loss of life, the debilitating injuries of the survivors, the wholesale destruction of cities, historic artifacts, cultures, the damage to the environment, the financial loss to economies, the lingering and intractable animosities among different groups of people? Where is the cost-beneift analysis for nuclear war? That's got to be great for progress.)

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.